


Tumblr Snippets: Tolkien

by Jenavira



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, M/M, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Snippets, except for haters of fëanor you come sit by me, haters to the left, tales from the appendices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 16:37:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenavira/pseuds/Jenavira
Summary: or, I have Fingolfin feelings, you should have them too





	1. long winter, longest night

When the snow started falling in October, it was with a sense of holiday about it. All the little hobbit-children were overjoyed, having expected to have to put off their snowball-making and snowhobbit-building until November at the very least, and their glee was so infectious that only a very few of the oldest farmers in the Shire shook their heads and muttered gloomily about the long winter to come.

When the snow continued falling though November, some folk gathered in the inn and said that at least it was keeping the orcs away. Their companions told them to keep quiet and not tempt fate, while back in their homes their wives counted the stores in the pantries and worried. By mid December the snow still had not stopped falling and many found that it was a trial even to open their doors. Some didn’t bother, choosing instead to stay inside and wait for a spring that already felt as though it would never come. The hobbit-children had tired of snowball fights and snow-hobbits. Hunger had set in, and much of the long winter still lay before them.

It was around that time when Brandobas Took looked around the great hall (and it was a great hall, great enough to hold every hobbit in the Shire, so long as they were prepared to be friendly, which hobbits always were) and decided that enough was enough. “Orcs and warns are one thing,” he announced, “but I will not see us fall apart in the face of a little snow.”

So he and his friends and relations, every hobbit who lived in Brandybuck Hall, set out from the front gate with shovels in hand. By now the snow had risen above the doors, drifting over the tops of the hobbit-holes so that the whole Shire looked like an uninhabited snow field. They dug tunnels under the snow, as tidy and industrious as any hobbit-hole had ever been dug, from the gates of Brandybuck Hall to the front doors of every hobbit in the Shire, where they issued their invitations. It took them two weeks, and hard, backbreaking work it was too, and on short rations. But on the longest night of the year, all the hobbits wrapped themselves up in coats and hats and scarves, and, carrying those too young or too infirm to make the journey themselves, assembled in Brandybuck Hall.

They made a very cozy gathering, and a very merry one, too, for no matter how dark and bleak the situation, it is hard to remain discouraged when surrounded by friends. And after weeks trapped indoors with little to eat and less to do, even the neighbor you find intolerable in better days may seem friendly. The celebration lasted long into the night, and through the next morning. Everyone had brought a little something, and for many there was enough to eat for the first time in weeks.

And then, late the next morning, there was a stir. While they had been digging the tunnels, you see, they had also dug out the windows of the hall, and when the sun rose on the morning after the longest night of the year, it was not snowing, and the sunlight poured into the hall. A great cheer went up among all the assembled hobbits, and a renewed optimism rose from the crowd like a cloud. It was a much more cheerful group of hobbits who left Brandybuck Hall, calling out to their friends and neighbors and laughing as they went. The tunnels they maintained throughout the winter, and although it was long and cold and hard, and the orcs returned and wizards came to visit and a great many hobbits did not live to see the spring, it was never so lonely again.


	2. on this cold hill's side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or, I have Fingolfin feelings, you should have them too

Fingolfin found no sleep on the shores of the Sundering Sea. The march north had been grueling, but although his limbs pinned him down to the cold ground with their own weight, his mind would not rest. It played for him images, one after another, cast in highlights and shadows by a light that no longer illuminated the world. His father, face painted crimson by treacherous imagination. His brother, standing high on a hilltop, sword drawn in the failing light. His sons, uncomplaining, impenetrable to him. Anairë, Finarfin, Aredhel, Olwë, and Fëanor, always Fëanor, burning like a brand and lighting everyone in his proximity.

In a later Age, the light on the eastern shore might have been the rising of the sun, but in this time of darkness Fingolfin knew it the moment he saw it. He closed his eyes against the light of Fëanor’s betrayal and breathed deeply of the cold wind blowing off the Helcaraxë. He had already known that their march was not over.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do u ship thorindul? then join me in telchar/thingol shipping hell

Telchar of Tumunzahar had never left the Dwarven strongholds of the Blue Mountains. He had never seen the need. But when the Elvenking of Doriath required weapons to face the growing dark, Telchar himself brought the fruits of his forge to the Elven kingdom. He would suffer no one else to carry the work of his hands, not until it had been paid for and properly traded. Besides, he had a great desire in him to see the Thousand Caves, the work of his kin.

Elu Thingol received them in the great halls of Menegroth. Surrounded by caverns and columns and carvings, Telchar held his head high as he presented his work, Dwarvish swords in a Dwarvish hall to an Elven king.

Thingol stepped down from his dais when the first sword was drawn. Telchar presented it, blade resting heavy on his elbow, as Thingol bent close to examine it. A breath escaped his lips, barely shaped, that might have been, “Exquisite.” The Elvenking ran his hand reverentially down the flat of the blade, and Telchar shuddered behind his beard as if he himself had been touched.


	4. Aredhel's return

They took her prisoner at the gates of her own city. She intended to curse her foolish brother’s name all the way to his halls, but the green plains and white towers overtook her instead. It had been so long, and yet it had been no time at all. The work of the hands of the Eldar did not change with the passage of time. She could feel her throat closing in response to the memory of that terrible isolation even as her heart spilled over with joy at the glint of sunlight on the fountains.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the look on her son’s face, and could not quell a flush of pride. Her son, who had known nothing but dark forests, was coming into the greatest city built on these shores, her home. He was appropriately awed. She felt the steel returning to her spine, that she had not even known she had missed, as the guards led them through the streets. They were her escorts, now, not her captors; she was the White Lady of the Noldor, and she had come home.

Her reunion with her brother was formal; he had always been formal, when the alternative was to reveal his emotions. It was not, to her surprise, strained. He embraced her son with genuine warmth, and she absolutely refused to shed a single tear. It was surprise, only. She had grown skilled in believing the things she told herself.

When one of the guards pulled her brother aside to whisper in his ear, she knew what it meant. Her husband had followed them, as she had known he would.

It had not felt like an escape until that very moment.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know I’m not the only one who likes Thranduil being overprotective of Bardlings, so here’s a thing

It was a good thing, of course, that trade between the Woodland Realm and the rebuilt city of Dale remained robust, but Thranduil found himself increasingly irritated by the formalities it required. He still could not spare the men for transportation, but he was reluctant to allow just any mortals within his borders. And he had lost his most trustworthy bargeman, and had to find another. It was most disagreeable.

The youth fidgeting before him was clearly overwhelmed by his regal surroundings, but he tried hard not to show it, and Thranduil allowed himself a grudging hint of respect for the boy. He also looked familiar for some reason that Thranduil could not place, and that was the only reason he had not been sent away as soon as he had brought his - entirely acceptable, Thranduil trusted Bard’s recommendations - petition.

And then the memory came to him. He tilted his head and gazed down at the boy, who froze like a prey animal who has scented a wolf.

“You are the one who has been courting the princess Sigrid, are you not?” Thranduil asked, although he knew the answer.

“Aye, my lord.” He did not squeak, though it was clearly an effort. If the boy wondered why Thranduil would ask such a thing, he didn’t show it.

“She is a very beautiful young woman.”

This made the boy blush, although he held his head high, perhaps with pride. “Aye, my lord.”

“And her father is a kind and generous man.”

“Aye, my lord.” The boy was clearly growing nervous of this line of questioning. It must have occurred to him by now that this had nothing to do with his petition.

“I, however, am neither.” Thranduil fixed the boy with the full force of his glare, something not many mortals had suffered. “If you harm her in any way, if you cause her to shed a single tear, you will know what the ruthlessness of the Elves truly means. You will return in a fortnight for the barrels from the cellars,” he said, allowing his tone to drop only a fraction of its cold warning. “You may tell your master that you have the job. For now.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU, prompted by mafiaprinceza: "Bard asks Thranduil for hair advice. Thranduil attempts to elaborately braid Bard’s hair."

“D'you have a hair tie?” Bard fished one out of the tray by the door as soon as he asked, of course, and started trying to wrestle his hair up off his neck. Thranduil was sprawled on the couch with a book, but he didn’t seem all that interested in it. It was hard to be too interested in anything, as hot as it was. “God, I don’t know how you can stand it. It’s bad enough now; by August I think I’m just going to cut it all off.”

Thranduil sat up to attention. “Cut off your hair?”

“It’s just hair." 

Bard couldn’t help smirking a little, though - he’d been sure that would get a reaction.

"I don’t care, you’re not cutting it,” Thranduil said, giving his husband a stern glare to let him know he was serious.

Bard gave up on the tie and turned to Thranduil, his arms spread wide in supplication. “Well then, what am I supposed to do with it?”

Thranduil gave him a long, appraising look, then scooted forward on the sofa. “Come here.”

Feeling a little silly, Bard settled down on the floor between Thranduil’s knees. Long fingers ran through his hair, cooling and gently massaging his scalp, and he let out a little noise of pleasure. Behind him, Thranduil chuckled softly.

“See, not so bad, is it?”

“Not yet.” But all sarcasm aside, it was far from bad to sit here between his lover’s knees and relax into soft touches and the gentle tug and pull on his scalp. In this meditative state even the little jolts of pain were mildly arousing. _No wonder he likes it when I pull his hair while we’re fucking._ Bard laughed silently to himself and tilted his head back to stretch his neck.

He was challenged by a sharper pull, not so arousing, and an admonition. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Almost done. Do you still have that tie?” He passed it up, and a few moments later Thranduil hummed in satisfaction, moving his hands to Bard’s shoulders and squeezing lightly. “That should be more comfortable,” he said, sounding very pleased with himself.

Casting a skeptical glance over his shoulder, Bard scrambled to his feet and went to examine himself in a mirror. Thranduil had pulled his hair back into a loose French braid, sweeping it up away from his temples - which happened to accentuate the grey, something he knew Thranduil approved of, even if he wasn’t too fond of it himself - and twisted in the back into a low club that didn’t brush his neck no matter how he twisted his head around.

“Well?” Thranduil asked, coming up behind him after Bard had spent a few minutes examining himself from as many angles as he could manage with just one mirror.

“Who’s going to do it every day?” he grumbled.

“I will.” Thranduil dropped a kiss onto the back of his neck, and Bard shivered. Their eyes met in the mirror. “You are not going to cut your hair.”


	7. Durin's Folk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In the vein of my Silmarillion Rewrite, the Dwarf bits of the appendices. Kick back and grab some cookies or something, folks, this is a long one.)

Basically, Dwarves are weird. Their stories about the beginnings of the world and of themselves are different from everyone else’s, and they don’t share, so it’s hard to say much about them. If you know the story from the Elves, though, you can bet the Dwarves tell a different one.

We do know a little bit about their history. The first Dwarf to awaken was Durin, who wandered about a bit until he had a vision while looking into a pond (see Gimli’s poem in “A Journey in the Dark”) and then founded Moria. He lived for so long they called him Deathless, and even when he eventually died there was a wee Dwarf born who they also named Durin, and so eventually he became kind of the Dalai Lama of Dwarves.

There were also Dwarf cities up in Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains, but the wars of the First Age destroyed those so all those Dwarves went down to Moria and basically everyone in Middle Earth agreed that Moria was the shit.

When Sauron took over and Elves and Men were fighting dramatic battles and dying all over the southern plains, Durin shut the doors of Moria and the Dwarves just kind of sat there being rich and waiting for it all to blow over. And they were totally fine until the Third Age, when Durin VI finally pushed the mine deep enough that it cracked the Balrog’s prison (I dunno what that Balrog did, but someone must’ve been pissed at it to bury it so deep) and then the Balrog killed Durin and his son Nain and that was the end of Moria.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of not being eaten by Balrogs, the Dwarves of Moria went looking for a new home, and Nain’s son Thrain (no, not the one you’re thinking of) decided he liked the look of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain to the east of Mirkwood. He set up doing the same damn thing his grandfather did, but instead of digging out a Balrog he dug out the Arkenstone, and Thrain decided that he liked this place and settled in. Thrain’s son Thorin (no, still not that one) took one look at Mirkwood and the backwater hick Elves that lived there and said, “Nope,” and he and a bunch of Dwarves went off to the Grey Mountains, which was where most of the other refugees from Moria had gone. There the Dwarves built up a very nice little kingdom, which was fine until they were attacked by dragons.

So okay, fine, fuck the Grey Mountains. Gror took a bunch of Dwarves out to the Iron Hills, but Thror (yes, that one) went back to Erebor and there they became absurdly rich and happy and made treaties with the Men who lived in nearby Dale and it was awesome. Since their family lived in the Iron Hills, they had a constant supply of ore, and they used it to make weapons and armor which they traded with the local Men and so the Men were the best-armed, best-armored folk in the area and drove off all the Orcs and dragons and things, and everyone was happy, it was a very nice mutual arrangement.

You know what happens next. Dragon, destruction, death, doom. Luckily Thor and his son Thrain and Thrain’s wee children Thorin (yes) and Frerin and Dis all escaped and traveled south, where they became kind of Dwarvish gypsies, homeless and wandering and living in fairly depressing poverty.

When he was old and desperate, Thror gave his son Thrain the only treasure that Smaug had not taken from him, the last of the Seven Rings, the ones Sauron gave to Dwarves in an attempt to control them. (Turns out Dwarves look at the will of Sauron and kind of shrug and go back to what they were doing, so this wasn’t as bad as it could have been.) Then Thror told his son, “This might help, I dunno, but I am sick to death of being poor and useless and shorter than everyone, I am going for a walk, I may be some time.” And Thror took his old friend Nar and they went to Moria.

When they got to the gates of Moria they were standing open, and Nar said, “I have a bad feeling about this,” and Thror ignored him and waltzed right in like he owned the place (which, technically, he did). And Nar being not an idiot sat outside the gate for days, waiting for something to happen, until one day something did. He heard a horn and a shout and a thump, and when he looked up there was a body lying on the steps in front of the Gates of Moria. And Nar said to himself, “I definitely have a bad feeling about this,” but a voice from the hall called out that they needed a messenger, and I guess you can only have so much common sense at one time, because Nar went to talk to it.

And sure enough, the body on the steps was Thror, but it was in two pieces, with the head lying a few feet away. And the voice from Moria said, “That’s what we do to sneak-thieves with tacky beards. Also, in case you forget who’s king around here now, I wrote it down for you.” And Nar turned over his friend’s head and saw “Azog” written in runes on Thror’s forehead. And then the Orcs, who can’t resist a cheap joke, threw a bag of change at Nar’s head and shouted at him, “That’s for postage!” and laughed at him while he ran away.

So Nar went back to Thrain and told him the whole story and Thrain, predictably, was not going to let that shit stand. He sent out messengers but it was three years before they had enough Dwarves to make an attempt on Moria. (Which, when you think about how long it takes Hobbits to do any goddamn thing, is actually pretty impressive.)

So they got all the Dwarves they could get, basically, and started at one end of the Misty Mountains and headed for the other end, killing every Orc they could find along the way, and then getting pissed that none of them were Azog and killing some more. Nobody who wasn’t a Dwarf or an Orc actually noticed this, since most of it was underground, but trust me, it was fuckin’ scary. Eventually they drove all the Orcs into Moria and the Dwarves, approaching from Kheled-zaram (which would be the Lorien side, for those of you without Dwarvish maps), were all set to lay siege to their old home when the Orcs came pouring out of the mountainside.

It was not pretty. It was overcast, which is why you’ve got Orcs fighting outside during the day, and Thrain’s first attack was thrown back into a nearby woodland, and Thrain and Thorin were both wounded (but Thorin got to do his badass Oakenshield thing, so that’s cool). Late in the day the Dwarves of the Iron Hills arrived and they turned the tide, and when they’d fought their way up to the gates, Nain son of Gror knocked on the door and called Azog a chicken.

Obviously a badass Orc was not going to stand for that, so Azog came out and started throwing insults at Nain, who was exhausted from fighting all day and also pissed off with the adrenaline of finally getting a shot at the asshole who beheaded his cousin. You can guess how it went. Azog killed Nain, but then he actually looked at the rest of the battle and realized that the Orcs were getting their asses kicked by pissed-off Dwarves, so he ran back for the gates, where he was promptly beheaded by Nain’s son, Dain, who has a delightful sense of irony, I like Dain. (Dain is also like fifteen in Dwarf years at this point, it’s really very cute, everyone thinks he’s an incredible badass from here on out, and anyway he does get to become King Under the Mountain eventually, so that’s good for him.)

After the battle, there was no feasting or singing, because with only half of their army still standing they needed to save their energy for caring for the wounded and burying the dead. They did take the time to mount Azog’s head on a pike and stuff the pouch of money he’d thrown at Nar in his mouth, though. Dwarves do these things properly.

The next morning, though, Thrain (who was now blind in one eye and limping on one leg, he’s a Dwarf pirate, it’s awesome) got up and said, “And now we get to live in Moria again!”

And all the other Dwarves said, “I thought we were here to kill Azog? Fuck Moria. I’m going home.”

So Thrain turned to Dain and said, “Come on, man, it’ll be great.”

And Dain said, “Fuck no it will not, have you seen in there, no one wants to live in there any more, if you try it will eat you, let’s go home.”

So they looked at all their dead and decided that building tombs would take far too long and no one really wanted to hang out in front of the abandoned gates of Moria any longer than they had to, so they retrieved all the arms and armor so that no one else could use them and then built a great pyre. They cut down every tree in the valley to make it, and the Ents must have been pissed, but all those Dwarves needed a good send-off, and anyway Dwarves and Ents have never gotten along. It’s a family thing.

After Dain took his people back to the Iron Hills, Thrain looked around at the smoldering ashes of their people and then turned to his son and said, “At least tell me you don’t plan on going back to begging.”

“Hell no,” said Thorin Oakenshield, so he and his father and Balin and Gloin and whatever other Dwarves were still hanging around them by that point went back to Dunland and eventually to the Blue Mountains.

But the bad shit is not over for Durin’s line just yet. Thrain is still a vain asshole, like all of his family, and one day he just up and went back to Erebor, with Balin and Dwalin and a couple of other companions. He never made it. One night their party was driven into Mirkwood by marauding Orcs or Wargs or evil birds or god knows what shit Sauron was sending after them and they all went to sleep (idiots) and when they woke up in the morning Thrain was gone. Turns out he was captured and taken to the dungeons of Dol Guldur where he was tortured and eventually left for dead. (At some point Gandalf stops by and meets this crazy Dwarf who gives him a map and a key and Gandalf just kind of goes, Whatever, bro, and only about a hundred years later does he realize what just happened there.)

For a while Thorin was happy being lord of his people in the Blue Mountains, they were blacksmiths and traders and made frankly shittons of cash, plenty of other Dwarves heard about how well off they were and went to live with Thorin because he was so awesome. But sooner or later, you know how it goes, he starts sulking about all the wrongs done to his people and their lost kingdoms and develops a fixation on dragons and you all know how this goes.

How it starts, though, is on a rainy evening, which is to say March the Fifteenth, 2941, in Bree. (Yes, we know the date, if you would like to commemorate it with a drink you are more than welcome to do so.) It’s raining and cold and Thorin is cranky and that makes him brood on the wrongs done to his people so when he sees Gandalf in the bar he goes up to him and says, “You don’t know me but I know you, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this dragon problem.”

To which Gandalf says, “That’s a lie, I do know you, and I have been meaning to talk to you about this dragon problem.”

Between the two of them, they fixed the dragon problem.

So Dain became King Under the Mountain, which is pretty good for a guy who killed an Orc at fifteen and hasn’t done much since, and Gandalf talked some other folks into attacking Dol Guldur, which I guess is kind of revenge for Thrain, we’ll call it good. And it was a good thing they did, because then in the epic war that is Lord of the Rings, there were no dragons in the north to come down raining fire on Minas Tirith, and if Dain was killed in another battle at the gates of Erebor, well, at least he was a badass to the end.

A few other random notes. There legit are only a few Dwarf women – about a third, give or take, of the population. The only one we know by name is Dis, who is Thorin’s sister and an amazing badass in her own right. I don’t know any stories about her, but I am going to assume she is an amazing badass because she should be. You have to be something of a specialist in Dwarves to tell the difference between male and female anyway, so there’s a good chance that there are more Dwarf ladies walking around than we are aware of. Not all Dwarf ladies marry, either, they have better shit to do, and so do most of the men, so that’s good.

Obviously one of the most ludicrously famous Dwarves is Gimli son of Gloin son of Groin (he is also Thorin’s third cousin once removed, if I’m reading this chart right). After the end of the wars with Sauron, Gimli brought a group of Dwarves down from Erebor and set up shop in the Glittering Caves, which, if you will recall, he made Legolas come promise to visit with him sometime. They traded with Gondor and Rohan, made brand new mithril-steel gates for Minas Tirith, shit like that. (Coincidentally, just to the south, Legolas brought a bunch of Elves out of Greenwood and set up shop in Ithilien, close to his boyfriend’s new digs. And then, after Aragorn died, Legolas went to the West and brought Gimli with him, and Gimli became the only Dwarf ever to love anything or anyone enough to leave Middle Earth.)


	9. A (Largely) Comprehensive History of Greenwood the Great, Known in Latter Days as Mirkwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (I miss writing meta in this style)

1\. First, the world was created. This has made a lot of people very unhappy, etc. etc.

2\. Shortly thereafter, the world’s population looked something like this:

Valar (about two dozen, give or take), in Valinor

———————————(vast, empty, open territory)———————–

Elves (who knows, maybe 3,000 or so) at Cuiviénen

3\. Then the Valar found the Elves and started the Elvish migration westward

4\. Three Elves went to Valinor and were really fucking impressed, so they came back to tell everyone else about it

5\. Two Elves led their people back to Valinor. One of them (aka Elu Thingol, aka not actually the biggest dickhead who ever lived but only because there’s some stiff competiton for that title) got distracted and married an angel and lived in the middle of that vast, open territory. A whole bunch of Elves got bored with walking and decided to stay where they were. There are probably some Elves living in the Greenwood at this point.

6\. Back in Valinor, Fëanor (aka possibly the biggest dickhead who ever lived) creates these minerals that everyone craves

7\. Meanwhile, Elu Thingol builds a cave-palace in the middle of the forest and names it Menegroth

8\. Melkor (aka The Original Bad Guy) seduces a giant spider to help him steal those minerals

9\. And then he ditches the spider, who has a whole lot of slightly-less-giant spider babies, which eventually end up living in the Greenwood

10\. Elu Thingol’s daughter marries a dirty human, which is gross and makes everyone unhappy, and by everyone I mean Elu Thingol

11\. Lots of wars that are surprisingly only mildly relevant here

12\. Dwarves invade Menegroth and kill Elu Thingol, possibly for good reasons, possibly only because he’s one of the biggest dickheads who ever lived

13\. Everyone gets sick of Melkor bossing them around and bands together to kick his ass, which kind of sort of works. A huge chunk of the continent falls off and sinks into the ocean. Melkor runs away.

14\. Oropher, one of the Sindar Elves of Doriath, moves into the Greenwood and declares himself king for no apparent reason

15\. Sauron (aka Lord of Werewolves, aka Melkor’s fave) moves into the power vacuum left by the expulsion of Melkor and starts bossing everyone around, which they don’t like any more than when Melkor was doing it

16\. Pretty much the whole Second Age of the World, while Oropher is King in the Greenwood for no apparent reason

17\. Eärendil turns into a star and Elwing turns into a swan, leaving their twin sons, Elrond and Elros, orphans in the hands of dickhead Fëanor’s dickhead sons. Elros decides that being human means eventually getting out of this whole mess and opts to grow old and die. Elrond never forgives him for this. None of this is super relevant, I just thought you should know.

18\. Gil-galad, the son of *mumblymumble* and the only thing passing for a High King the Elves have left, bands together with Elendil (Elros’s great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandson, or thereabouts) and whichever Durin is ruling the Dwarves at the moment to kick Sauron’s ass, and Oropher condescends to help

19\. So everyone is lined up waiting for the charge, and Oropher jumps the gun, and he and pretty much all of his army of Woodland Elves are slaughtered by Orcs while everyone else shifts from one foot to another and stands there thinking, “fuck, what an idiot.”

20\. And now Oropher’s son Thranduil is King of the Greenwood, yaaaay

21\. But Sauron is defeated so everyone assumes that things are gonna be pretty okay from here on out

22\. Probably somewhere around here Thranduil has a son??? No one’s sure how, possibly including Thranduil himself

23\. Then a giant fuck-off dragon comes and burns down the Dwarvish kingdom literally right next door to the Greenwood (which everyone is now calling Mirkwood on account of all the slightly-less-giant spider babies living there even though there are also a ton of gorgeous Elves living there, thank you very much)

24\. Forests are a little more flammable than mountains

25\. And now the only people around to talk to are uncultured Woodland Elves and the humans down in Laketown who are so dim they actually seem to have gotten the Master to be in charge of them on purpose

26\. And that’s why Thranduil is a hot mess


End file.
